Recently, in the field of color photographic light-sensitive materials, with the shortening of the time for delivery of finished products and the reduction of laboratory work, it has been desired to shorten the processing time for color photographic processing. For shortening the processing times for various processing steps, a method of increasing the processing temperature, increasing the amount of each replenisher, activating the processing composition, or adding various accelerators has been generally employed, and furthermore methods of strengthening or improving agitation of the processing solution have been also variously proposed.
However, it has been found that when water wash step is shortened to less than 2 minutes in the aforesaid cases of shortening the processing time for photographic processing steps, the formation of stains on the processed color photographic materials is increased in continuous processing.
Also, in a process for automatically performing continuous processing of general color photographic materials, the environmental preservation, the saving of silver resources, and the recovery of silver are important problems, and countermeasures for reducing the amount of wash water or a stabilizing solution, reutilizing these solutions, etc., have been investigated.
For example, for greatly reducing the amount of the replenisher for wash water or a stabilizing solution, a multistage countercurrent system wherein plural tanks for the water wash step or the stabilization step are employed and the replenisher is continuously supplied to the system has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,336,324.
By employing the aforesaid system, the amount of waste solutions in the photographic processing can be reduced, whereby the load for preventing the occurrence of environmental pollution is greatly reduced, and also the reduction of the amount of wash water and the reutilization of wash water can be easily practiced.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,336,324 described a stabilization process which employs plural tanks and performs the stabilization while supplying a replenisher for the stabilizing solution in a multistage countercurrent system after fixing. Since, in the processing system, the amount of the replenisher for the stabilizing solution is as small as 3 to 50 times the amount of a processing solution carried by color photographic material from the pre-bath, the amount of water can be greatly reduced, and hence the aforesaid system is an advantageous system in regard to environmental preservation and water resources, which recently have become important problems.
However, when the amount of wash water or a stabilizing solution is greatly reduced by simply employing such a multistage countercurrent system for processing color photographic materials, there occurs a problem in that the occurrence of stains after processing becomes severe.
Such stain is particularly perceivable in reflective photographic materials, and hence becomes, as a matter of course, a serious problem in practical case.
From the facts that these stains are removed by rewashing with water, do not occur when the washing time in the photographic processing is sufficiently prolonged, or do not occur when a fresh color developer is used, it is considered that such stain is caused by oxidized components of a color developer, which remains on the color photographic materials without being sufficiently washed away.
Hitherto, for improving the stability of color developers various kinds of preservatives and chelating agents have been investigated. Examples of preservatives include aromatic polyhydroxy compounds described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 49828/77, 160142/84, and 47038/81 (the term "OPI" as used herein means an "unexamined published application"), U.S. Pat. No. 3,746,544, etc., the hydroxycarbonyl compounds described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,615,503, British Pat. No. 1,306,176, etc., the .alpha.-aminocarbonyl compounds described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 143020/77, 89425/78, etc., and the metal salts described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 44148/82, 53749/82, etc.
Examples of chelating agents include aminopolycarboxylic acids described in Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 30496/73, 30232/69, etc., the organic phosphonic acids described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 97347/81, Japanese Patent Publication No. 39359/81, and West German Pat. No. 2,227,639, the phosphonocarboxylic acids described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 102726/77, 43730/78, 121127/79, 126241/80, 65956/80, etc., and the compounds described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 195845/83, 203440/83, Japanese Patent Publication No. 40900/78, etc.
However, even when these compounds are used, a sufficient preservability is not obtained and also the increase of the occurrence of stains on the processed color photographic materials is observed in the case that the time for water wash step or stabilization step is short or the amount of the replenisher for the wash step or stabilization step is reduced.
Also, it is well known to use benzyl alcohol for a color developer for improving the coloring property, but the use of benzyl alcohol involves various problems such as that the solubility thereof in the processing solution is poor, the increasing the time required for the preparation of the processing solution, the color developer containing benzyl alcohol forms tars with the passage of time, and, as to photographic properties, conversion of leuco cyan dye becomes incomplete and the storage stability of color images after processing is reduced.
On the other hand, a technique for improving the stability of a color developer by adding a compound shown by formula (I) described hereinbelow to the color developer is known as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 12381/78. However, when the compound is used in the presence of benzyl alcohol, the effect may be obtained to some extent as described in the example of the aforesaid patent publication, but in the wash step or the stabilization step of a shortened processing time or in the case of reducing the amount of the replenisher for the wash step or the stabilization step as described above, an increase of staining (in particular, yellow stains) is observed and the effect of using the compound described above is insufficient.